The fully vented wide rim nursing bottle with contoured vent tube relates generally to infant serving products. More specifically, the present invention refers to nursing bottles having an internal tube that prevents a vacuum within the bottle and assists an infant to suck liquid from the bottle.
A unique aspect of the present invention is an expanding diameter of the venting tube that provides for its full venting during both usage and storage.
Babies have the instinct to suckle milk from their mothers. For a variety of reasons though, babies often drink liquids from other sources. Babies lack the ability to drink from ordinary glasses and cups without spilling. So, liquids are fed to babies using baby or nursing bottles. A nursing bottle features a silicone, latex, rubber or other material as a nipple with a hole in its tip secured across an opening in the top of the nursing bottle. The current nursing bottle gets used by filling the bottle with a liquid, inserting the vent tube, securing the nipple, inverting the bottle, and placing the nipple into the baby's mouth and the baby takes it from there.
Nursing bottles, vented at the rim of the nipple, are tightly sealed but for the opening in the nipple. As the baby nurses, the volume of liquid in the bottle decreases and the vacuum in the bottle increases proportionally thereby contaminating the liquid. However, vent tubes allow ambient air to enter the bottle generally behind the liquid while the baby suckles. The vent tubes reduce any vacuum created by the suckling baby within the bottle. The vent tube improves the flow of liquid out of the nipple and makes it easier for the baby to suckle. The baby faces less risk of sucking in air and the resulting colic.
Infant and infant feeding containers originally had a narrow superior orifice to which the nipple was attached. Caregivers noted that the narrow opening prevented ready access to the interior of the bottle and prevented easy cleaning of the interior of the bottle. Manufacturers then addressed that shortcoming with bottles having larger diameter openings. Those bottles met with sales success on the marketplace.
The larger openings called for manufacturing and usage of nipples and feeding spouts with larger diameter flanges to mate with the opening of the bottle. The larger diameter flanges prevented leaks where the nipples joined to the bottles. However, the larger diameter nipples, retaining the same distance from the superior to the inferior end of the nipple, had a larger volume contained by the nipples.
Further, infants often chew upon nipples though nipples remain designed for suckling to remove fluid from a bottle. Nipples and other feeding accessories therefore have toughened designs to resist chewing. Chewing of nipples arises more often in infants with feeding problems, such as neurological delays or deficits. The neurological delays induce a frequent chewing motion by the infant upon objects placed in the mouth, often nipples.
During frequent chewing on the feeding nipple, especially those with larger diameters and internal volumes, the infant propels air distally into the bottle itself. Air introduced into the bottle may increase the pressure upon the interior of the bottle. The increased pressure frequently forces liquid distally into a venting tube located within the bottle. The liquid under pressure traverses the vent insert and the vent tube, exits the bottle, and causes liquid to spill from the bottle.
Leakage from chewing also arises when introduced air stops midway within a cylindrical vent tube. Due to the pressures within the cylindrical vent tube, some liquid may be entrapped in the vent tube by an air bubble caused by an infant chewing. The air bubble must be forced out, ideally as it normally enters the tube when the bottle is inverted and in a feeding position for the infant.
However, an air bubble trapped in a vent tube makes the liquid in the distal portion of the vent tube unable to traverse the vent tube and exit into the distal end of the bottle. The liquid fails to enter the enlarged reservoir portion of the feeding tube for proper venting by the vent tube. Alas, feeding liquid may then impede the venting function of the tube.
Many attempts have been made to provide a nursing bottle with an air vent to reduce the creation of a vacuum during suckling. An early patent to Roderick, No. 598,231 has a nursing bottle with a U shaped tube. However, the average baby, upon uplifting a bottle, had some liquid retained in the U shaped tube. The retained liquid blocked the tube and prevented ambient air from releasing any vacuum within the bottle. Other patents show related types of technology, and provide means for venting air from the interior of a container, as can be seen in the U.S. patent to Van Cleave, No. 927,013. In addition, the patents to Davenport, Nos. 1,441,623 and to Perry, No. 2,061,477, show other means for venting air from within a nursing bottle.
In the preceding work of these applicants, Pat. Nos. 5,779,071 and 5,570,796, venting and internal tubes prevent the formation of partial vacuums during suckling and resisted spills. The '071 patent provides a vented tube extending into a bottle. The vented tube has a hollow cylindrical shape projecting sufficiently downwardly into the bottle. The '796 patent provides a reservoir located above a mark on the bottle. The reservoir communicates with a conduit system to replace suckled liquid with air from the reservoir thus preventing a partial vacuum in the bottle. Nursing bottles of a multitude of designs are available in the prior art. In many instances, frequently a vacuum will be generated within the bottle during dispensing of its contents, as when nursing an infant. A vacuum is believed to cause various physiological impairments to the infant when subjected to this type of condition. The vacuum generated within the bottle, due to the infant's sucking, can cause pressure imbalance at the location of various features of the body, such as in the ear canal, and which may lead to fluid, ear infection, speech delay, motor delay, developmental delay, illness, or is other predicaments. Thus, the presenting of a nursing bottle that incorporates air venting means, so as to prevent the creation of a vacuum inside the bottle, has been considered a desirable development in the field of infant serving products. Such can be seen in the applicants' prior patents '071 and '769, wherein the reservoir tube that provides for venting, externally of the bottle cap at an upper proximity, extends into the lower portion of the container, to function as a vent while the contents of the bottle are being consumed, when partially or fully inverted.
The current invention, on the other hand, provides means for venting of any air pressure within the bottle, and to prevent the generation of any vacuum or pressure therein, regardless whether the nursing bottle is being used, stored in an upright position, or partially or fully inverted as during consumption of its contents.
Other U.S. patents that relate to the subject matter of this invention include the U.S. patent to Briere, No. 189,691; U.S. Pat. No. 345,518, to Lelievre; U.S. Pat. No. 679,144, to Hardesty; U.S. Pat. No. 834,014, to Lyke; U.S. Pat. No. 1,600,804 to Donaldson; U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,156,313, and to No. 2,239,275 Schwab; U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,610,755, to Gits; No. 2,742,168, to Panetti; U.S. Pat. No. 2,744,696, to Blackstone; U.S. Pat. No. 3,059,707, to Wilkinson, et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,796, to Brown, et al. In addition British patents No. 273,185 and No. 454,053 show related developments.
The present art overcomes the limitations of the prior art—nipple vented bottles—where a need exists for reducing vacuum inside nursing bottles using vent tubes. That is, the art of the present invention, a tapering vent tube allows air to exit rapidly and distally from a tube and liquid to return promptly to a reservoir thus limiting the formation of a vacuum within a nursing bottle. The enlarged proximal portion of the vent tube minimizes the incidence of leakage from the bottle. The present invention cleans easily, endures inadvertent chewing, and dissipates pressure generated by chewing. The present invention prevents leaks and continuously vents a bottle, thus dissipating any air bubbles in the vent tube.